About 50 feet to my garage. That doesn't really count as I'm making my own spitfire and it can't be considered a real spitfire. It will obviously be many, many years in the making. Airworthy spitfires? unknown. I think there is one being restored in Quebec, about a three hour drive. There used to be a wrecked Mk XIV in Orford Vermont, whether it's still there or not is unknown, about a two hour drive. After that, it's anybody's guess. I don't know of any between Maine and NASM in DC, which has one; that's a 14 hour drive.

I had the occassion to be there twice during last year or so, but never been to that particular museum previously. Remember meeting one Mr. Hoffmann, one of the museum's staff and apparently their "Spitfire expert". Very knowledgeable indeed and he kindly offered me a guided "walkround" of the Spit and a look into their library. I learned a lot of new things that day

The nearest Spitfire to me is at the Auckland War Memorial Museum which is about 15 minutes drive from my home, it's a MkXVI, although one of its wings is from a MkIX.The next nearest is the 2 seater at Ardmore airfield (about 35 minutes drive south) which is under repair and at least one other (a MkIX I think) in the same Hangar being rebuilt very, very slowly. In the hangar next door to it is the Mk XIV originally from Wanaka, also being rebuilt very, very slowly.The next nearest after that is the newly rebuilt MkIX in the southern part of the North Island at (I am not sure if its Palmerston North, Marton or Ohakea). Its owned by Brendon Deere who is the nephew of the New Zealand Spitfire ace, Al Deere.And the last one is the Mk XVI in the RNZAF Museum at Wigram, near Christchurch.When you add them up like that, New Zealand does'nt do too badly for Spitfires, considering they were never in service here.CheersDave S